A fence is a common means in the field of security systems and a wide scope, routine use of them prevails, for example along a border or separation lines and around sensitive sites that require circumferential sector protection (airports, ports, infrastructure installations and so on).
Warning fences for detecting intrusions include—usually, infrastructures in the form of an array (assemblage) of anchoring poles and sensors' poles that are deployed along the fences, wherein they are pinned (stuck) in the ground and rise perpendicular to it. A flat fence surface in a multi wires or net configuration is connected to the poles' array and it also extends perpendicular (orthogonally) to the ground surface.
Locating an intrusion through the fence as said and issuing an appropriate warning, dictates not only the installation of sensors as said, but also fast arrival at the site of the intrusion along the fence, and at least referring an imaging means towards the intrusion's location (site) in order to verify that surely it is an intrusion that occurred and not a false alarm. In other words—intrusion detection fences require patrolling (scanning) that would be amenable for quick launching along its length and/or deployment of an array of observation sensors along its length.
Verily, there is a snag, as patrolling along the fence raises high costs and also exposes its personnel to being attacked. Also operating un-manned vehicles for carrying out such patrolling missions along the length of the fence is relatively expensive and prone to problems of exact remote control and driving accuracies.
Concurrently, deployment of observation sensors along the fence's length was also found to be relatively expensive and exposed to being damaged as a static system, for example by snipers, and remote neutralizing, requires existence of a line of sight along the various sectors (namely sensitive to the existence of “dead areas” along the fence periphery, limited to specific observation angels and sensitive under certain non favorable weather conditions—rain, fog, dust). A fixed system of observation sensors has also a difficulty in providing a “close view” of the fence and its near-by surrounding sectors, as required for exact analysis of the warning (for example—a near (close) view of the warning's reason as required for locating a cut in the fence, a near (close) view as required for evaluating the foot marks (impressions) that were impressed in a brushed earth (dirt) track for detecting intrusions that was paved alongside the fence). In addition, a fixed array of observation sensors does not enable detecting threats by scanning and close observation along the fence (for example—detecting roadside bombs (e.g., an improvised explosive device (IED)) that was laid down near the fence, or a hidden ladder that was prepared in advance for climbing later over the fence).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,671,890 described a “Roving Camera Security System”. The subject matter of this patent discloses a multi cameras security system that is propelled on a monorail track wherein it is covered all the time by a housing that covers both the mobile system and the monorail track on which it moves and wherein the housing includes protection from the sun radiation (to prevent the mobile system over heating by the sun radiation) and a filtering window to hide the exact position of the mobile system along the monorail track from an unwanted outside view.
The system described therein, dictates installing a dedicated infrastructure (a housing that covers the entire track along its total length), and does not provide an answer to existing infrastructures of intrusion detection fences, but rather by way of erecting a new infrastructure of fully covered rail and a housing along it. In addition, the mobile system payload there is summarized by a plurality of cameras and does not provide for any other mobile means.
Thus, in the period that preceded the present invention, which is the subject matter of this application, there existed a need for a close threats observation capability while moving along a fence and a rather quick launch of at least unmanned imaging means towards the precise location wherein a warning was received along the intrusion detection fence, and positioning this imaging means in a close proximity to it, and this without having to resort to a solution that requires the construction of a specific dedicated infrastructure that is complicated and relatively expensive in parallel to the fence and separated from it.